Activities of Malawian Muslim Organizations

There are a number of Muslim organizations that operate in the country largely in the areas of welfare and education service provision. Some of them are as old as 50 to 60 years in operation such as the Africa Muslim Schools Association (AMSA), Muslim Association of Malawi; while others have been in operation for slightly fewer years such as Zakaat Fund, Munazzamat Da’wah Islamia (MDI), Al-Barakat Foundation, Association of Sunni Madrassa, Lilongwe Islamic Movement (LIMO). There are other smaller Muslim organizations such as ASALASES and AL-HIDAYA which mostly concentrate on Muslim-Christian public comparative religious discussions.

Some of these organizations are national based such as Muslim Association of Malawi, Africa Muslim Schools Association (AMSA), while others are region based such as Lilongwe Islamic Movement (LIMO), Association of Sunni Madrassas (ASUM).

All these organizations operate at different success levels depending on the availability of finances.

Without going into details of the activities of each organization, there are a number of challenges that all the Muslim organizes operating in Malawi face which are responsible for the great compromise in the impact of their activities in the upliftment of the Muslim lives in the country. These problems include, Cut-throat competition for funds, lack of transparency and accountability in financial management, gross abuse of aid beneficiaries such as orphans and the needy, lack of grassroots consultation and community participatory approaches to project management, lack of coordination amongst different Muslim organizations, lack of proper monitoring and evaluation systems to assess the impact of their programs on the communities they serve and financial mobilization in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.